Blogs CIU 111

It can be very daunting starting out in the creative industry. Like a small fish in the big sea. Luckily this week we talked about the effects social media can have on your career.

Social media can be used as a tool to self promote. Now before you go off making accounts on every single social media page, you need to make a list of 3 things that you aim to achieve with using social media. Are you trying to become known? are you looking for work? do you want people to critique your work? are you simply making it easier to connect to like minded individuals?
What ever it may be, make sure you have no more than 3 goals. Just remember “If you try to achieve everything in general, you’ll achieve nothing in particular”.

Once you have your goals planned out, you must decide on a social media platform. Again the same rule applies don’t use every platform you can think of, just pick one or two to focus on. Make sure you pick a platform that is directed towards your target audience.

Its really important to keep all social media presence visually identical or familiar, keep it consistent. You don’t want people mistaking you for someone else.

Only create quality content. You only get to make a first impression once. Stay professional. Keep social media posts aimed towards that target audience.

How often should I be posting? Aim towards keeping a steady schedule of posts. Try for a post a day. Vary your posting hours and see which posts become the most viewed. Use this information to your advantage. Test and tweak to see what works best for you.

This weeks lecture is all about inclusive design. It talks about ways to widen the reach and appeal of your creative projects. It talks about creating content suitable for people who may have physical impairments such as colourblindness, low vision, are deaf or have hearing difficulties and people with mobility impairments. An example in which developers include functionality for people who are colour blind could be testing the final product in a colour blind simulator, allowing them to certify the visual integrity to those who may otherwise struggle with certain colours. Some cinemas are offering closed caption viewing for people with hearing impairments. Some games have implemented ways of controlling playable characters for people who may only be able to use one hand. These are all examples of inclusive design.
Other examples are changing and mixing up the races of characters in movies and games to possible appeal to a larger audience.

But does gender representation in movies actually broaden the target audience?

Well below i have attached an image taken from the New York Film Academy’s blog on Gender Inequality In Film. It visually displays statistics on how women have been portrayed on screen in the top 500 films from the time 2007-2012.
It clearly displays the information that the western society doesn’t deny. It shows that women are a minority in film when it comes to lead characters and that they are more commonly displayed in a sexual way as a pose to men. The part that I find really interesting is the last statistic. In the US women purchased half of the movie tickets. This i find to be very interesting. Does the film industry need more inclusive design when it comes to gender equality? Some woman may still be against the morals and ethics of film industries when it comes to gender equality, but it hasn’t effected the amount of women who still purchase the movie tickets. The industry may not have a desire to change the way they operate due to sales not being affected.

I think inclusive design is a fantastic way of allowing your media to be accessible to more people in more ways however, the ethics of gender equality hasn’t effected the target audience from the statistics I have found.

Interviews can be a scary Thing. It’s literally a process which is set up to professionally judge a person.
People may think that it’s alright because interviewers are only investigating your capability to work as well as the standard of work you produce.

In the creative industry interviews are given out to those people who successfully apply for a job which usually require a showreel or a portfolio.
Once an interview commences, discussion of work is actually minimal. The interviewer may be asking questions more relevant to getting to know you as a person. Do you prefer to work in teams or by yourself?
What motivates you? What is your dream job?
They want to find out about your work ethic, experiences, reliability and uniqueness. What can you bring to the company that nobody else can?
These questions are all aimed to getting to know YOU with the goal of understanding how you would fit into the company and if the working chemistry will be compatible.

Once all of the standard questions have been asked sneakier questions may be asked. These questions are a common practice at a studio like Pixar.There are a couple of sneaky questions each with a specific purpose in understanding your personality in greater depth but I will just give this example.If you were a part in a car which part would you be and why?The first answer that came to my mind was “I would be the GPS, because I know the direction we must take but i lack the capability to actually get there…”This answer is somewhat true, revealing that I can be and aspire to lead but also reveals that I have a sense of humor even what the situation may stress the average person out.

Being a creative person with hope of becoming a professional, people often ask what does my future holds in turns of a career. How as an animator am I meant to make a living?

Well I am glad you asked!

The most basic and standard answer to this question is simple working for a studio. Normal hours 9-5 completing the tasks delegated to you. Depending on the agreement you may be paid based on a salary or paid per minute of animation. Some people find this type of work safe and secure, for they can always know when the next pay check is coming in. Others may find this line of work a little too black and white allowing little creative control or freedom.

Freelancing is similar to the previous example of work however more often that not YOU are your own boss. Yes this sounds like the dream, but in reality if everything falls apart you are solely liable. It does not guarantee a weekly paycheck due to freelance work being based on a termed contract. The flip side to that is you do get most of the creative freedom you want of course giving the final say to the client.

Crowd funding is less common source of income but if done successfully can be a lot of fun. Websites like kickstarter allow artist or creatives to pitch ideas to the internet for things such as games, movies or digital works of art and if people are wanted to see the end result of such a project, they will help support it financially with a small donation. Currently the largest crownfunded game to date is called “Star Citizen” with a whopping 109 million dollars and counting under its belt. It really goes to show that crowdfunding an idea is possible.

These are a few of the different types of income your art can bring you, but if you become creative economically I am sure you will find something that suits your needs perfectly.

This weeks lecture covered a few fundamental bases of copyright and contract. This may seem like rather dull areas for artists in the creative industry to be talking about, but it is extremely essential to have knowledge on.

Contracts are almost always involved when working with clients in the industry (exceptions may be due to working with small projects or on a non formal based client such as close friends or relatives). These contracts are put in place to protect both parties and making sure there is a legal binding requiring both parties to follow through with their original obligations.
These contracts should include the scope of the project, for example; the duration the final product must run for, the target audience, finished deliverables such as videos in a specific file format and all project files used to complete the project and how long they have to complete the project.
Finance will address payment and how payment will be made.
Conditions on who will be the sole owner of the work once it have been completed.
It will clarify penalties as to if project deliverables are not met in the required time frame.
It will sometimes but not always have a non disclosure agreement, meaning that the artist cant go around telling everybody about the current project they’re working on.
Finally it needs to be dated and signed by both parties.

Only sign the contract if you are happy with it, never sign without reading it all (no matter how long it may be) and if you are not happy with a particular condition just remember that you can always re-negotiate it.

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